Weapons Went From The CIA To ISIS In Less Than Two Months

Years late to the party, mainstream media outlets like USA Today, Reuters, and Buzzfeed are just out with "breaking" and "exclusive" stories detailing how a vast arsenal of weapons sent to Syria by the CIA in cooperation with US allies fuelled the rapid growth of ISIS. Buzzfeed's story entitled, Blowback: ISIS Got A Powerful Missile The CIA Secretly Bought In Bulgaria, begins by referencing "a new report on how ISIS built its arsenal highlights how the US purchased munitions, intended for Syrian rebels, that ended up in the hands of the terrorist group."

The original study that Buzzfeed and other media are referencing comes from a UK-based independent weapons research organization called Conflict Armament Research (CAR) which has had a team of weapons and munitions experts on the ground in the Middle East for years examining arms and equipment recovered from ISIS and other terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. Using serial numbers, crate shipping markings, and all available forensics data, the CAR experts began finding that as early as 2013 to 2014 much of the Islamic State's advanced weapons systems as well as small arms were clearly sourced to the United States and the West.

“Supplies of materiel into the Syrian conflict from foreign parties - notably the United States and Saudi Arabia - have indirectly allowed IS to obtain substantial quantities of anti-armor ammunition,” states the CAR report. “These weapons include anti-tank guided weapons and several varieties of rocket with tandem warheads, which are designed to defeat modern reactive armor.”

A PG-9 missile modified to fit a Model 2 recoilless launcher system. Produced in 2016 in Romania, exported to the United States and documented in Mosul in September 2017. Source: Conflict Armament Research

The study further reveals that in one notable instance, a weapons shipment of advanced missile systems switched hands from US intelligence to "moderate" Syrian groups to ISIS in only a two month time period. Though the report is now evoking shock and confusion among pundits, the same weapons research group has actually published similar findings and conclusions going years back into the Syrian conflict.

For example, a previous 2014 Conflict Armament Research report found that Balkan origin anti-tank rockets recovered from ISIS fighters appeared identical to those shipped in 2013 to Syrian rebel forces as part of a CIA program.

And CAR's damning publications presenting such inconvenient empirical data have been consistent for years, yet were largely ignored and suppressed by analysts and mainstream media who were too busy cheerleading US support for Syrian "rebels" cast as romantic revolutionaries in their struggle to topple Assad and his secular nationalist government. Of course, it's an old story if you've been reading Zero Hedge or the profusion of independent outlets that have long reported the truth about the covert "dirty war" in Syria since nearly the beginning.

Even though it's now suddenly acceptable and fashionable to admit - as does one recent BBC headline ("The Jihadis You Pay For") - that the US and Saudi covert program in Syria fuelled the rise of ISIS and various other al-Qaeda linked terror groups, it must be remembered that only a short time ago the mainstream media openly mocked analysts and writers who dared make the connection between the West's massive covert Syrian rebel aid programs and the al-Qaeda insurgents who so clearly benefited.

When news of the 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report broke, which described what it called a "Salafist principality" or "an Islamic State" as a strategic asset or buffer in Syria that could be used by the Western coalition "in order to isolate the Syrian regime", American media outlets dismissed what was labelled a "conspiracy theory" at the time in spite of the hard evidence of a US military intelligence report being made available.

And yet nowonce again "conspiracy theory" has been confirmed as "conspiracy fact": Conflict Armament Research's new report out this week is the result of a three-year ground investigation which compiled findings from 40,000 military items recovered from ISIS between the years 2014 and 2017. Its conclusions are scientific, exhaustive, and irrefutable.

The extensive report confirms what former MI6 spy and British diplomat Alastair Crooke once stated - that the CIA established the basis of a “jihadi Wal-Mart” of sorts - to which ISIS had immediate and easy access. Crooke noted that the weapons program was set up with "plausible deniability" in mind, which would allow its American intelligence sponsors to be shielded from any potential future legal prosecution or public embarrassment. Crooke noted in a 2015 BBC interview that, “The West does not actually hand the weapons to al-Qaida, let alone to ISIS…, but the system they’ve constructed leads precisely to that end.”

This is what enables Buzzfeed, USA Today, and others to report the bombshell findings yet continue to soft peddle the significance by emphasizing things like "weaknesses in oversight and regulation" while also highlighting the "accidental" nature of US-supplied missiles "ending up" in the hands of ISIS terrorists.

A guided anti-tank missile ended up in the hands of ISIS terrorists less than two months after the US government purchased it in late 2015 — highlighting weaknesses in the oversight and regulation of America’s covert arms programs, according to information published Thursday by an arms monitoring group called Conflict Armament Research (CAR).

Though the report says the missile was purchased by the US Army using a contractor, BuzzFeed News has learned that the real customer appears to have been the CIA.It was part of the spy agency’s top secret operation to arm rebels in Syria to fight the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The missile ended up in the hands of ISIS fighters in Iraq, according to the report.

The CIA declined to comment on the Obama-era program to back Syrian rebels, which was canceled by President Trump in July. The Pentagon did not provide information in time for publication.

The missile is one piece of a critical puzzle that is being solved only now, with ISIS on the run: How did the vast terror group arm its war machine? CAR spent three years tracking ISIS weapons as they were recovered by Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish forces — and found that what happened to the missile was no aberration. Indeed, the terror group managed to divert “substantial quantities of anti-armour ammunition” from weapons provided to Syrian opposition forces by the US or Saudi Arabia.

The anti-tank missile recovered from ISIS in February 2016. It originated with the US Army in December 2015. Image source: Conflicts Armament Research, "Weapons of the Islamic State" via Buzzfeed

But some astute observers might notice the significance of the timeline related to the CIA purchase of one of the anti-tank missiles examined: "A guided anti-tank missile ended up in the hands of ISIS terrorists less than two months after the US government purchased it in late 2015." As highlighted previously, the CAR team of experts had already documented the trend of CIA weapons delivered to the Syrian battlefield going to ISIS fighters as early as September of 2014. Beyond this 2014 study, a seemingly endless stream of articles going back years published in independent and international media have underscored the reality of ISIS growing and thriving because of Western and Gulf state covert weapons shipments.

This means that CIA and government analysts knew full well where the weapons were going in real time, yet continued with the program anyway. As former Pentagon intelligence chief Michael Flynn told Al Jazeera's Mehdi Hasan in a stunningly frank summer 2015 interview (significantly before Flynn was part of the Trump campaign), the White House’s sponsoring of radical jihadists (that would emerge as ISIS and al-Nusra/HTS) against the Syrian government was most certainly “a willful decision.”

Thus General Flynn in the summer of 2015, speaking as recently retired military intelligence officer, warned in no uncertain terms that US-supplied weapons in Syria were going to ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other jihadists. This was so well known at the time that it could be openly stated by a retired high ranking official an a major international program. Flynn also said something similar to both Seymour Hersh and the New York Times in 2015.

But what did the CIA and allied intelligence agencies do? They continued arming the jihadist insurgency in Syria in their efforts to oust Assad. This was indeed "a willful decision" as Flynn affirmed and not mere "weaknesses in oversight and regulation" as Buzzfeed would have us believe.

BEIRUT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. forces airdropped small arms ammunition and other supplies to Syrian Arab rebels, barely two weeks after Russia raised the stakes in the long-running civil war by intervening on the side of President Bashar al-Assad.One military official said the drop, by Air Force C-17 cargo planes in northern Syria on Sunday, was part of a revamped U.S. strategy announced last week to help rebels in Syria battling Islamic State militants.

Before we give you these weapons we need you to answer the following question, please: How moderate a Muslim are you?A) Very moderateB) Super moderateC) Totally batshit crazy psycho moderate Thank you for your response. Hmmmmm...... OK, all this paperwork looks in order, here's your weapons.

Now see!No one would have ever found out about what the Obama administration was doing if they had just used the Strzok 1000 Super Secret Spy Phone System, with prompt next day air delivery shipped anywhere via the world wide Fusion GPS dossier inventory management. Fucking amateurs ;-)

I am tired of this shit. Aren’t you?Please, EVERYONE with a Twitter account send this message Every Day (tell your friends on facebook):Mr. President, the time to purge the Obama-Clinton holdovers has long passed. Please get rid of them at once. Make your base happy. Fire 100+ from DOJ - State - FBI. Hire William K. Black as Special Prosecutorsend it to:@realDonaldTrump@PressSec@KellyannePolls@WhiteHouse Does anybody know how to start an online petition?Let’s make some NOISE!!

"In rebel-held Syria, access to the weapons you need to wage an insurgency are just a tap away thanks to an encrypted messaging app. The Islamic State may be in retreat, but other militants in Syria have been trading thousands of weapons in publicly accessible black markets hosted on Telegram, including dozens of U.S. military assault rifles and parts for the same kind of anti-tank missile systems distributed by the CIA to anti-Bashar al-Assad rebels."http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/06/the-messaging-app-fueling-syrias-in…

Yes he so much caused the SU to vote themselves out of existence at the height of their economic powers after exiting the Afghanistan campaign which barely dented their finances. Unlike the latest lot of "democratizers" :D

I simply looked into the whole Benghazi thing the month prior and was wondering what the hell they were doing there in the first place. I forget what exactly tipped me off, but in less than a month I was all but certain it was a weapons trafficking operation.

The only outstanding question really, is "did the operation go bad... or as intended?" Knowing the Clinton pattern of silencing people who know too much, I have a guess.

Reading around page 36 on in the CAR report it wasn't just an anti-tank missile or two. It's everything . What is the US Army doing buying Romanian 7.62 x 54 medium machine guns in 2012? Is this for the Chicago police or the Forestry Service rangers in Yellowstone? What budget doe the army pay for it in? Why is Kiesler Police Supply incorporated in Indiana selling AK weapons and ammunition to Iraqi Security Forces? Is this another fast-and furious? Do they even touch anythign or are they just a front (stupid me). Best I just watch the Live Leak videos of the Apache flying opposite the convoys of Toyotas flying their ISIS flag. Wish I had that contract.

I lived near Picatinney Arsenal and a neighbor who worked there said that whenever a new model of an artillery shell came off the line (Martin-Marietta?) the State Deoartment bought them and sent them to Israel to be tested for efficiency on real live Palestinian targets. Yes, Our State Department in action bring democracy to the world.

Of course they did. And their are Matians who will be invading Earth tomorrow. You are an idiotic asshole.... Where in the article is Israel even mentioned. Why are you even on your computer or device. Don't you realize that Jews and Israelis have invented much of the software and hardware in your devices.

Don't you realize that Jews and Israelis have invented much of the software and hardware in your devices.On Uncle Sap's payroll. "Israel" wouldn't exist, let alone invent stuff, without our $Umpteenbillion a year now would it?

>Thus General Flynn in the summer of 2015, speaking as recently retired military intelligence officer, warned in no uncertain terms that US-supplied weapons in Syria were going to ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other jihadists. <They took care of him, didn't they?

They “Neutralized” him. They couldn’t very well outright Eliminate him. He was Ann integral part & actor in their Russia False Narrative PsyOp.

To state the obvious; the CIA has deeply humiliated the American people in their attempt to tie the American people to be responsible for the CIA's crimes against humanity across the world.

The CIA appears to be the world's greatest threat to peace and prosperity. It is the penultimate terrorist organization, being the direct or indirect creator of all other terrorist organizations. It also appears to be the world's penultimate illegal drug smuggler and pusher making all other illegal drug trading possible and instigating the horrors of addiction and suffering around the world.

If I believed that the CIA was working in any way on behalf of the US government and the American people then it would be sad and shameful indeed. However, it is my belief that the CIA instead was captured long ago, as was the secret military operations and now works for a hidden power that wants to dominate or failing that, destroy humanity.

The Agency is Cancer. There should be no question about the CIA's future in the US.

Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long, that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes Against The American People.

And yet, there is something positive in this. By experiencing and knowing evil, we can choose the path of light or choose to ignore both dark amd light. It is a choice we all must make if we intend to evolve from being animals ruled by this world and its illusions.

The slaughter of the Green Beret colonels Cutolo, Rowe, Bayard, Baker and the fifth - conveniently 'dustbinned' by Google, a brave man who was the SOF commander in early '90s killed in a parachute 'accident' - should clearly show Americans, especially, who their mortal enemies truly are.

The slaughter of the Green Beret colonels Cutolo, Rowe, Bayard, Baker and the fifth - conveniently 'dustbinned' by Google, a brave man who was the SOF commander in early '90s killed in a parachute 'accident' - should clearly show Americans, especially, who their mortal enemies truly are.

I know someone that I strongly suspect of having been on one of the airdropping planes, and when questioned about it he obviously couldn't say anything, however I learned quite a bit from what he could and couldn't say.

And yes the unit was tasked directly from the Secretary of State's office.

any statistical analysis of their fucked up weapon drops would prove that the repartition between "good" and "wrong" hands was just to slanted for them to pretend being innocent. You can argue what you want until someone shows you 100% of your drops fell in the wrong hands...They better not come back with this old excuse...

Yeah, well... There can't be many of us ZH readers who ever believed the MSM's dismissal of the truth as just another "conspiracy theory". Three years ago I wondered in my personal blog (link below) which offshore tax-haven had facilitated the sale of those Toyoto pickups that ISIS was driving around the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. Was it my home territory of the Cayman Islands? I never found out, but it was fun speculating. http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2014/10/who-sold-isis-all-those-toyotas.html